When Nagalinga Prabhu launched a menopause retreat at Bluehill Lotus in Sirumalai, Tamil Nadu, three months ago, he didn’t expect such an overwhelming response. Thirty women have already attended, eight more have just signed up. “It’s a diet and therapy programme tailored for post-menopausal women. We have revived traditional remedies, the ones every ‘paati’ knew, but nuclear families have forgotten,” he says, adding that expanding the programme is on the cards.
Menopause isn’t just having a moment up in the hills of Sirumalai. Talk of the ‘second spring’ is in season in the city too. This Sunday, Chennai hosts its first ‘menoparty’, where 500 women working through ‘the change’ will gather for a day of dance, demos, and discussions with experts such as nutritionist Shiny Surendran, gynaecologist Dr Priya Kalyani, dermatologist Dr Moni sha Aravind and counsellor Jayashree Jothiswaran giving insights on everything from preventive strategies to ‘feeling sexy 2.0’. “Each of us has been caught off guard by menopause,” says Shiny. “I’ve experienced everything from hot flashes, forgetfulness and insomnia to bizarre symptoms like a waxy earlobe. I wouldn’t have made the connection if I hadn’t talked about it. We want women to know what we’ve learned, but all backed by science.”
Sunday’s party is just one of the ways to get the conversation going. For Chennai-based menopause coach Srividya Gowri, it’s been a 13-year journey of trial and error that evolved into a habit cracking and tracking pro gramme for diet, fitness and mental wellness.
“I’m in menopause, okay,” she says, echoing actor Halle Berry’s viral Capitol Hill proclamation last year. A former American Express executive turned nutritionist and fitness instructor, Gowri coaches women in perimenopause and menopause on protein, plating, strength and sleep. “I teach them to work with their body — for example, understanding why they feel sluggish at 3pm or why weight fluctuates every single day,” says Gowri. “I went through eight years of perimenopause, and hated it,” she says. “I want to make the journey better for others.” (The sluggish feeling can be countered by adding 20g of protein — five egg whites for instance — to every meal, says Gowri. As for the weight fluctuation, it’s a combination of certain workouts, salt and eat and sleep cycles.)
Education consultant Kavitha Srinivasan, who joined the coaching pro gramme, says being part of one made her realise menopause was more about habit transformation than anything else. “Having a support group helps. I’ve seen my mother suffer in silence, and only when I experienced similar symptoms did I understand what she went through,” says the 52-year-old. “Oh, the fatigue! I couldn’t explain it to anyone. And now I know it’s perfectly normal.”
Fatigue is one of the most underestimated business markets, says Shaili Chopra, founder of Gytree, a holistic wellness platform that focuses on the needs of perimenopausal, menopausal and postmenopausal women. “Most women are lost, unsure, and unaccepting of menopause. In India, we need more than just cocktail party conversations,” says Shaili, who launched a menopause club last year and travels across 24 cities to talk to women above 40.
Shaili, who is also working on a documentary on the Indian menopause experience, adds, “Women in India go through menopause earlier than the average American woman and factors range from climate to diet and cultural conditioning, so we need a different approach to it.”
In India, says bioengineering re searcher from Chennai, Gayatri Muthukrishnan, who recently co-founded Miyara Health, an AI-led platform that offers personalised programmes for menopause-related concerns, the average age of menopause is 46-48 years, earlier than the western average of 51 years. “The rate of early menopause (40-44 years) is about 16% in India, and premature menopause (below 40) is 3.7%, both higher than in the west,” says Gayatri. “India has about 325 million women in the 35-65 age group, yet there’s hardly anyone catering to them,” she adds. “The country’s menopause market, which includes products and ser vices, generated $860 million in revenue in 2022 and is expected to double by 2030.”
Seeing the gap, UK-based menopause doula Fiona Catchpowle launched menopause talking therapy programmes to help women understand their biology and build their own toolkit,” she says. “A menopause doula guides, nurtures and supports women from their first period to post-menopause,” adds Fiona, who has trained doulas in India.
“It’s simple math,” says gynaecologist Dr Hepsibah Kirubamani of the Chennai Menopause Society, which hosts regular meetings with experts and has an ‘over 35 club’. “Women live longer now. We’re likely to live until 80, which is a third of our adulthood. We’ve got to stop living it in the dark.”